There is a good news for farmers specially for Punjab ad Madhya Pradesh as the Centre has agreed to export wheat.
Though a formal decision will be taken by the empowered Group of Ministers shortly, the process to export the wheat has been initiated.
Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar and commerce minister Anand Sharma have conveyed to concerned groups that the government has decided to export 4 million tones of foodgrains to Iran. The talks are in advance stage with Iran with whom country is facing problems due to US pressure. the modalities to export 40 lakh tones of wheat and rice to Iran is part of India’s effort to meet crisis arising out of foodgrain glut.
The issues relating to subsidizing the exporters of wheat due to glut and fall in international market are also being worked out by the Manmohan Singh government. Sources in the government said that gap between the prices of Indian wheat and international prices has narrowed due to growing demand globally. It is explained that demand of wheat has risen recently and Iran is keen to import wheat from India as part of the barter deal Oil for Food.
Harsimrat Kaur and Naresh Gujral, the two Akali Dal leaders who met the Central ministers conveyed that Punjab is already having an old stock of 9.80 million tones of wheat and rice. During the current season the state has procured 12.60 million tones of wheat. This brings the total foodgrains to 22.60 million tones. But the state has a capacity of fully covered storage facility of 10 million tones and another 10.40 million tones of open plinth area. It simply means that more than 3 million tones is rotting and lying in the open. The procurement is still going on and stocks may go up to 24 million tonnes
Sharad Pawar and Anand Sharma said that testing of wheat in laboratories is going on and efforts are moving in the right direction to create consitions to export wheat and rice.
